Facing Monday

Updated 3/2017-- photos and all links removed as many are no longer active and it was easier than checking each one.

Last Monday was reported to be the saddest day of this year.   So to help you and I face Monday and the beginning of a new week, in case you missed these stories…..

Roger Ebert has written in his Chicago Sun Times blog of how he will once again be “Leading with my chin.” 

………..That was the beginning of a two-year process that has now resulted with my coming into possession of a silicone prosthesis. Dr. Reisberg brought in David Rotter, also from the University of Illinois, and he involved Julie Jordan Brown, a Milwaukee artist and anaplastologist. Working from molds, they created a prototype prosthesis and sculpted it carefully to more closely resemble what had been there before. This device would fit over my lower face and neck and, colored to match my skin, would pass muster at a certain distance……….

He will wear the facial prosthetic on his new show set to debuted Friday January 21, 2011:   Ebert Presents at the Movies.  He speaks using his voice through his laptop.

…….

Last week, we heard the voice of a woman who is only the second person to receive a larynx transplant.   The 52 yo California woman’s surgery was done by a team of surgeons at UC Davis Medical Center.

From this article by Aaron Saenz: Woman Speaks With Her Own Voice After Larynx Transplant (video) comes the reminder that just last year a 10 year old boy had a new trachea made from his own stem cells.

So is this surgery simply a fluke? …... According to Paolo Macchiarini, one of the surgeons involved, “Not only is it highly relevant for future transplants, it offers us insights that may one day lead to using stem cells to repair the voicebox and surrounding areas in the throat.”

When it comes to stem cells and the throat, Macchiarini knows what he’s talking about. Last year he was the leader of a team that grew a new trachea in a 10 year old boy using the child’s own stem cells. As he stated in regards to the Jensen case, “Being able to restore nerves and reconnect blood vessels in and around the larynx and trachea, and have it all work, was a real test.” Perhaps this most recent operation will lead to further remarkable work from Macchiarini in the near future.

 

Related posts

First Full Face Transplant Done! (July 12, 2010)

Facial Prosthetics Restores Face (August 5, 2010)

Double Hand Transplant on Twitter (August 26, 2010)

 

 

REFERENCE

Laryngeal Transplantation and 40-Month Follow-up; Marshall Strome, M.D., Jeannine Stein, M.D., Ramon Esclamado, M.D., Douglas Hicks, Ph.D., Robert R. Lorenz, M.D., William Braun, M.D., Randall Yetman, M.D., Isaac Eliachar, M.D., and James Mayes, M.D.; N Engl J Med 2001; 344:1676-1679